The Circassian people's fight for justice and Russia's dark history

In a twist of historical irony, Vladimir Putin’s aggressive campaign in Ukraine has cast a renewed and intense global spotlight on Russia’s often suppressed past, particularly its legacy of imperial conquest, colonial aggression, and ethnic cleansing.

One part of this shadowy history now receiving increased scrutiny is the plight of the Circassian people. These are descendants of survivors of a brutal 19th-century campaign waged by Czarist Russia to eradicate them. The Circassians are now calling on the world to recognise these atrocities—mass killings, systematic cultural erasure, and forceful evictions—as a genocide.

Such recognition, advocates say, would legitimise the rights of millions of displaced Circassians to return to their ancestral homeland in the North Caucasus or to be formally acknowledged as refugees in the countries where they currently reside. It would also serve as a symbolic reckoning with the historical injustices perpetrated by imperial Russia, now echoed by modern-day Kremlin expansionism.

This decades-long campaign is rooted in rigorous academic work by historians like British scholar Stephen D. Shenfield and Russian Empire military historian Adolf Berzhe. Their findings describe a calculated and systematic expulsion and slaughter of Circassian populations during the Russo-Caucasus War, which culminated in 1864. These scholars have unearthed extensive military reports and personal testimonies documenting deliberate strategies to depopulate Circassian lands.

The movement for recognition saw significant progress in 2011 when the Georgian Parliament passed a landmark resolution acknowledging the Circassian tragedy as genocide. The resolution referenced key international legal instruments, including the 1907 Hague Convention and the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. Georgia also took the rare step of declaring the Circassian diaspora as refugees, in line with the 1951 UN Refugee Convention—an unprecedented diplomatic gesture in the region.

Circassians once formed a collection of culturally distinct tribes, entirely separate from both Russians and Georgians, with their own languages, spiritual beliefs, and rich oral traditions. Today, only a few hundred thousand Circassians remain in Russia, largely residing in the republics of Karachay-Cherkess and Kabardino-Balkaria. Many have lost their native tongue and traditional customs due to generations of forced assimilation.

A particularly symbolic site is the city of Sochi, host of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Located in Russia’s Krasnodar region, Sochi sits on land that was once part of historic Circassia. For Circassians, the use of this location to celebrate modern Russian achievements is a deep wound—an erasure of trauma beneath spectacle.

Iyad Youghar, Chairman of the International Council of Circassians, told The Standard that Sochi was historically Circassia’s capital and an essential hub for tribal gatherings.

According to Youghar, all Circassians were forcibly relocated to Ottoman territories under threat of death. “Today, the Russian state continues to push a completely fabricated narrative about what actually occurred,” he said, noting a pattern of state denial that persists in official media, textbooks, and public commemorations.

Prominent voices

One of the most prominent voices debunking these state-sponsored distortions is Fatima Tlisova, a veteran journalist of Circassian origin currently working with the Voice of America. Raised in Karachay-Cherkess and Kabardino-Balkaria, Tlisova has endured personal persecution for her fearless reporting, which exposes the mechanisms of repression still at play in the North Caucasus.

In her investigations, Tlisova reveals how Russia continues to whitewash its past. She recounts, for instance, how in 2022 the Russian government marked the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery with a cartoon produced during the Soviet era, falsely claiming Russia never engaged in slavery. Tlisova counters this narrative by highlighting the historic institution of kholopstvo—a form of Russian slavery that persisted until 1723. Under this system, a kholop was treated as property, and killing one was either unpunished or met with only minor penalties.

The Circassian diaspora today numbers over 6.2 million, but tragically, fewer than 10 per cent live within the borders of their ancestral homeland. According to Shenfield, only around 690,000 reside in Russian territories. The vast majority are dispersed across Turkey (with over five million), as well as in Germany, Jordan, Syria, France, the United States, Israel, and the Netherlands. Communities have also formed in Canada and Australia, where new generations are reconnecting with their roots through language revival and cultural festivals.

Despite being separated by generations and geography, many Circassians still feel a deep connection to their roots. Youghar, for example, is a US citizen born in Damascus, Syria. His grandfather was among the thousands who fled Russian terror and settled there. Stories of exile and survival are passed down like heirlooms.

“Our ultimate goal is Circassia,” he said firmly. “We want the world to acknowledge the genocide inflicted upon our people.” He believes such recognition is vital not just for historical accuracy but for justice, dignity, and the long-term survival of the Circassian identity.

Tlisova, who now resides in the United States, has taken her fight for justice to international forums. She has testified before the U.S. Congress on human rights violations in Russia. Her courage has come at a steep price—she was once kidnapped, tortured, and locked in a pitch-dark cell by men she believes were agents of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). Her case is emblematic of the broader pattern of journalist persecution in the region.

Tlisova, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, describes the Circassian genocide as one of the darkest chapters of Russian history—one that Moscow has long worked to erase from public memory. She sees the current political climate as a continuation of that historical amnesia.

International human rights watchdogs like Human Rights Watch rank the North Caucasus among the most perilous regions in the world for journalists. Threats, forced disappearances, and even daylight assassinations are alarmingly common. The climate of fear extends beyond media workers to include human rights activists, lawyers, and academics.

Blood Alliance

In his 2024 book Blutige Allianzen (Bloody Alliances), Ukrainian journalist Aleksei Bobrovnykov draws disturbing parallels between modern Kremlin expansionism and 19th-century Czarist ambitions. He argues that Putin’s military interventions in Chechnya, Crimea, and Ukraine reflect an enduring strategy to control Black Sea territories, including historical Circassia and Georgia. The continuity in territorial ambition, Bobrovnykov asserts, exposes a long game of domination.

Bobrovnykov reveals that prior to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, Putin’s close associate and Rossiya Bank shareholder, Nikolai Shamalov, commissioned an extravagant palace on land historically inhabited by the Adyghe people—a subgroup of Circassians. The sprawling $1 billion estate, complete with helipads, private theatres, and lavish décor, became known as “the palace of Russia’s new tsar.” The palace became a symbol of unchecked corruption and historical erasure.

Roughly a million Circassians were either massacred or exiled during the 1864 war, making it one of the most devastating instances of ethnic cleansing in Russian history. Survivors were crammed onto overloaded ships bound for Ottoman ports, where thousands died of disease and starvation before even reaching land.

Putin, when asked about his connection to the bank, made light of the situation, joking that he might consider opening an account there. Yet Rossiya Bank became the first major Russian financial institution to operate in occupied Crimea, brushing aside Western sanctions and illustrating the Kremlin’s defiance.

Alongside Georgia, Ukraine is one of the few nations that have officially recognised the Circassian genocide. Activists hope that more countries will follow, placing diplomatic pressure on Russia to confront its past and its ongoing repression of minority groups.

Historians like Shenfield, Berzhe, Peter Brock, and Abraham Shmulevich have carefully documented the fall of the Circassian Confederation in 1864, following a gruelling 101-year war that began in 1763. These works offer meticulous analyses of military strategies, diplomatic betrayals, and population displacement.

In his account, Eviction of Mountaineers from the Caucasus, Berzhe paints a chilling picture: “I shall never forget the overwhelming impression made on me by the mountaineers in Novorossiisk Bay, where about 17,000 of them were gathered on the shore. The late, inclement and cold time of year, the almost complete absence of means of subsistence and the epidemic of typhus and smallpox raging among them made their situation desperate. And indeed, whose heart would not be touched on seeing, for example, the already stiff corpse of a young Circassian woman lying in rags on the damp ground under the open sky with two infants, one struggling in his death‑throes while the other sought to assuage his hunger at his dead mother’s breast? And I saw not a few such scenes.”